1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure relates generally to obtaining, analyzing and presenting information from sensor devices, including for example cameras.
2. Description of Related Art
Millions of cameras and other sensor devices are deployed today. There generally is no mechanism to enable computing to easily interact with these sensor networks, particularly as they change over time. The processing of information is highly application specific. Applications such as advanced driver assisted systems and security based on facial recognition require custom built software which reads in raw images from cameras and then processes the raw images in a specific way for the target application. The application developers typically must create application-specific software to process the raw video frames to extract the desired information. The application-specific software typically is a full stack beginning with low-level interfaces to specific sensor devices and progressing through different levels of analysis to the final desired results.
As a result, the development of applications that make use of networks of sensors is both slow and limited. For example, surveillance cameras installed in an environment typically are used only for security purposes and in a very limited way. Furthermore, as technology progresses, more and better types of sensor devices become available. However, upgrading or replacing the original sensor devices may require reprogramming of the lower layers of the technology stack, thus slowing or preventing the adoption of new or improved sensor technologies.
Thus, there is a need for more flexibility and ease in accommodating changes to sensor networks and the underlying sensor devices, including cameras.